Wednesday's postponement puts Maryland in longest layoff of season

Edward Lee, The Baltimore Sun

The mutual decision to postpone Wednesday night’s showdown between UMBC and Maryland means that the top-ranked Terps will now have seven days between their last contest (March 2 at Duke) and their next one (March 10 vs. Stony Brook).

It’s the longest layoff of the regular season for Maryland, and coach John Tillman acknowledged some concern.

“I think kids, you get them in a rhythm and get into a kind of systematic repetition and I think kids really flourish in that,” Tillman said Wednesday. “So we’ve got to deal with how we’re going to have a little bit longer of a layoff, and we’ve got to handle that the right way. So it’s one more challenge for our team to deal with.”

The Terps will break off the rust against a Seawolves team that captured last year’s America East tournament and advanced to the NCAA tournament. This season, Stony Brook (4-2) has won its last three games, including an 11-7 upset of then-No. 15 St. John’s on Feb. 27.

The Seawolves are paced by senior midfielder Jeff Tundo, who leads the team in goals (15), assists (11) and points (26), and freshman Brody Eastwood, who has scored 12 goals. Tillman is fully aware of Stony Brook’s potential.

“Stony Brook is playing really well right now,” he said. “We saw that they won Tuesday [11-9 vs. Siena], and they’ve got some guys that are putting up some big numbers. So we’ve really got to switch gears here pretty quickly. We don’t have the luxury of having a whole week. It’s Wednesday already. It’s almost starting on a Tuesday to get ready for a Saturday game. We probably won’t be able to practice today. So we lose a prep day. We’re going to have to do a good job of switching gears and start thinking about Stony Brook as quickly as possible.”